


Lanterns

by polluxthescribe



Category: Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous (Cartoon)
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Camp Cretaceous Season 2, F/F, Fluff, M/M, Mostly Canon Compliant, Randomness, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:00:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28980756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polluxthescribe/pseuds/polluxthescribe
Summary: Ben's back, and Kenji has to get to know him all over again.
Relationships: Kenji Kon/Ben Pincus, Yasmina Fadoula/Sammy Gutierrez (background), Yaz & Kenji are besties who annoy each other
Comments: 8
Kudos: 139





	Lanterns

Ben’s return had made everything a thousand times better. It gave Kenji hope when he had none, and the empty space that had made itself apparent after the monorail accident was now gone. Somehow, with Ben around again, Kenji found it easy to forget that they happened to be stuck in a nightmare.

But it had quickly become evident that this Ben wasn’t the same person he had been at the start of camp. In fact, he proved to be the polar opposite of his old self. To name a few examples, he was the first to run into dangerous situations. He was the last to stop fighting. He ate bugs. He was loud. He was smug. He called Yaz by her last name, Darius “kid”, and Kenji…

Well, he called Kenji all sorts of names.

“Coming, Pompadour?” said Ben as he passed Kenji, Bumpy lumbering along beside him. The group was heading over to Mitch and Tiff’s abandoned campsite, hoping to find some food left behind by the now-dead maniacal dino hunters.

_Pompadour?_ Kenji instinctively reached up to touch his hair, his mind filling with images of over-gelled 1960’s hairdos and Elvis Presley sideburns. 

“It’s called flirting,” Yaz said in her usual dry manner as she came up beside him.

“ _Flirting_ is what you do with Sammy,” Kenji retorted.

“Did someone need my help?” The aforementioned Sammy rushed up to them, smiling cluelessly. If she’d caught the first part of the sentence at all, she didn’t show it. Yaz punched Kenji in the arm as the cheerily chattering cowgirl dragged her away.

“Ow,” he complained. Subconsciously, his gaze traveled over to where Ben was digging through some rubble. The camper in question paused to squeeze hand sanitizer all over his arms—one of the few things that hadn’t changed about him—and resumed working. 

Presently Ben uncovered a can of chickpeas and whirled around to share his discovery, only to notice Kenji staring. He grinned and flexed his muscles, which, despite the lonely weeks he’d spent surviving in the jungle, were kind of hard to see. “Admiring these?”

“What?” Kenji faltered, caught off guard. His ears burned as he hesitated, trying to think of a reply. “Uh, you call that buff? Check this out!” He rolled up his sleeve and showed off his bicep.

“Chill, bodybuilders,” Brooklynn said, rolling her eyes. She tossed a bruised apple over to Darius, who caught it and stashed it in a cardboard box they’d brought along. “Instead of messing around, try checking the food you find to see if it’s gone bad.”

“ _Please_ check it,” Darius seconded, gagging as he opened a swollen fruit cup. The pungent smell filled the air and he quickly pinched his nose and ran into a tent, presumably to dispose of it in the toilet.

“We’re ready,” Yaz announced, carrying a cooler full of frozen waffles. Sammy came up behind her, arms laden with several instant ramen bowls and a cereal box. 

“Great, we can start heading back now,” Darius said. He picked up his cardboard box of fruit and Brooklynn toted a bag containing several packages of biscuits. Ben unloaded cans of assorted food items into a pack on Bumpy’s back. Kenji looked around for something to take and ended up dragging a crate full of bread, crackers, and dried pasta.

It was dusk by the time they got back to their own camp, and everyone was a little out of breath. Ben let Bumpy graze on the plants at the base of the clearing and unloaded the pack of food cans from her back, following everyone else up into the treehouse to put away their newly acquired provisions. 

“We should probably eat what’s in the cooler first before the ice melts,” Sammy reasoned. 

“Same with perishable items, like the fruit,” Brooklynn added.

And so, dinner ended up being soggy waffles that they’d left out to thaw and battered fruit from the box that Darius had brought. As they ate, the campers fervently listened to tales of how Ben had conquered the carnotaurus.

“...And Toro fell straight over the edge,” Ben finished. “Completely defeated. He didn’t dare mess with me again.”

Kenji didn’t even notice how his jaw was hanging open; he was too busy being amazed at how Ben had bested Toro. He’d heard the story many times before, but it never stopped getting better. 

Brooklynn didn’t seem to agree. She rested her hand on her chin, bored. “You’ve told us that story, like, a million times,” she muttered.

“Anyone want to hear mine?” Darius said, eyes lighting up. “The one I started telling at the campfire before everything went wrong? You know, the one that I never got to finish?”

“What was it about again?” Brooklynn asked. 

Darius sighed. “Never mind.”

Yaz finished eating and got out her sketchbook, which was beginning to fill up. Sammy watched her as she started drawing.

Kenji was struck by an idea. “Ben, you’ve never heard Dave’s sick beats!”

Ben lifted an eyebrow. “Dave’s _what_?”

“Gotta be here somewhere…” Kenji dug around in a box that sat under the table. “Aha!” He produced the cassette and laid it on the table, pressing play. Music streamed out of the device. 

“Hey, it’s everyone’s favorite DJ!” Sammy enthused, standing up to dance. She was soon joined by Kenji, Brooklynn, Darius, and even Yaz, who put away her sketchbook and got up to enjoy the music.

Ben looked amused at first, but started nodding along to the beat. “Dave did this?”

“You can hear Roxie in there, too,” Kenji said. 

“Not bad,” Ben admitted, impressed. Kenji grinned. Ben liked it, and that made him feel oddly proud of himself, like he’d accomplished something.

After a small dance session along to Dave and Roxie’s music, the group cleaned up and got ready for bed. The moon had already climbed high, and Bumpy’s snores could be heard from below. They all bid goodnight to each other and climbed into their respective cots.

___

The night was unbearably still, and Kenji rolled over in his cot at the rebuilt camp. He’d been lying awake for a while now, unable to sleep. None of the campers were much good at building, and, despite having tacked their camp back together, they seemed incapable of creating comfortable beds. To add to Kenji’s grievances, some frog was croaking annoyingly close to his ear. And, of course, he was having too many thoughts, none of which consisted of counting sheep and most of which had to do with reflecting on everything that had happened so far on this terrifying dinosaur island.

“CURSE YOU, FROG!” Kenji yelled, sitting up straight. The croaking stopped, thankfully, and nobody seemed to have been woken up by his shouting. Darius muttered something in his sleep and Yaz, to Kenji’s amusement, was drooling. He’d have to mention that later. Maybe even to Sammy, although then he’d have a furious track star out for his blood. Best not.

Well, now he was wide awake, and trying to sleep had already proved to be a useless endeavor. Grumbling, Kenji slipped out of his cot and pulled on his shoes. Isla Nublar’s jungle nights were usually chillier than its days. Wishing he had a jacket, Kenji slid down the rackety slide they’d installed and landed right in a big puddle of mud from yesterday’s storm. _Fantastic_ , he thought bitterly.

Shaking off the mud and already making plans to shower first thing in the morning, Kenji started strolling rather aimlessly around the campground. He didn’t have a specific place in mind to go to, and he didn’t want to stray too far on an island full of carnivores, so he mostly just wandered the area and made sure not to accidentally step foot in the surrounding forest.

He’d just decided to have a drink at the river when he shivered, goosebumps raising up on his back. Something was amiss, but he couldn’t quite tell what. Was he being followed? Heart thundering, Kenji imagined a horde of compies swarming around him, leaving only clean white bones by morning. He slowly pulled out his butterknife, looking around in vain. He couldn’t see crap in this darkness. Climbing to his feet as carefully as he could, he called out, but nobody responded. He found his footing and backed into whoever was apparently standing behind him.

“Boo!” said Ben.

Kenji yelled all the vowels and fell into the river.

It wasn’t deep, and the water rushed around his shoulders as he stared up at Ben. Trying not to let off that Ben had scared the everloving hell out of him, Kenji molded his face into a glare. “Why were you stalking me?”

Ben shrugged and reached down his hand to pull Kenji out of the river. “You were screaming at some frog, it was impossible to ignore. Besides, it’s not exactly like I’ve slept well ever since the Indominus escaped. This seemed more interesting than lying in a cot and staring at the tarp.”

“Fair enough,” Kenji muttered, shaking himself off and making sure that most of the water got on Ben. He was still kind of pissed.

“Hey!” Ben protested. “Go dry off elsewhere.”

“You brought this upon yourself.” Kenji peeled off his soaking shirt and squeezed it all over Ben’s head.

“Done being a baby?” Ben said flatly, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow. 

Kenji grumbled, shook out his shirt, and put it back on. “I’m freezing.”

Ben looked like he was about to tell him to deal with it, but thought better of it. “Go get a blanket,” he sighed.

“Want one, too?” Kenji asked, already turning back towards camp.

Ben shook his head. “I’m fine. Also, bring a flashlight or something so we can see better.” He watched Kenji disappear into camp and leaned against a tree to wait.

Kenji was back in a matter of minutes, toting two “blankets”. One was actually a tablecloth, and the other a curtain: the campers usually just had to make do with what they found. He also brought a couple of flashlights with him, now making sure there were extra batteries included—he’d learned his lesson when the walkie-talkie had died during his adventure at the T-Rex lair back at Main Street.

“I told you, I don’t need a blanket,” Ben protested as Kenji handed him one, along with a flashlight. 

“Just in case,” Kenji replied. “Believe me, these things always come in handy.”

Ben rolled his eyes, but accepted. “Anyway, there’s something you should see. Follow me.” He ran off before Kenji could reply.

“Hey, wait up!” Kenji yelled after him, doing his best to catch up and flicking on his flashlight to see where Ben had gone.

“Down here,” Ben instructed, disappearing down a tunnel and turning on his own light. Kenji followed him, albeit cautiously. 

They were inside what seemed to be a natural cavern. As Kenji surveyed his surroundings with the flashlight, he was surprised to see water rushing through the space. The river went down here, too?

Ben reached over and flicked off Kenji’s flashlight, doing the same to his own. Kenji was about to protest when he noticed the cavern around them start to light up with a violet hue.

“It’s those glowy things,” he observed. “Like in the River Adventure.” He turned to Ben. “I’ve literally taken all the VIP tours, how come I’ve never seen this?”

“I’m pretty sure it was never finished,” Ben said, trailing his hand along the wall and pulling it away to observe the glowing material that was now on his fingers. “I guess they were going to expand the River Adventure and canceled the project halfway through, so they just redirected another river to flow through this cavern and never ended up doing anything with it. They literally have the exact same thing at the River Adventure, so there’s no reason for them to open this to the public, not even to VIP members.”

“Huh,” Kenji commented. He copied Ben, wiping a little of the algae off the walls and watching it glow on his hand. “How come you know about it?”

“I hid down here a few times after the monorail,” Ben admitted. “You know, before I…”

“Before you turned into survival warrior here?” Kenji grinned. “Seriously, when you came back, saving us all, with a bunch of cool scars and an actual _spear_ , wearing this band around your head like you’re a shipwrecked pirate or something, giant Bumpy by your side… I couldn’t believe it. You were—are— _epic_. You don’t seem to need protecting anymore.”

Ben smirked. “Aw, missing the days when I cuddled you every time something scary happened?” He hugged Kenji’s arm. “Oh, no, the algae looks creepy!”

“What?!” Kenji’s face instantly heated up. Admittedly, he took a while to pull away from the familiar grip. “N-no, I meant, like… you changed a lot.”

“So did you,” Ben said, suddenly quiet. His new devil-may-care attitude began to fade, and glimpses of his old self shone through as he chose his words carefully. “...You used to be reckless. You didn’t care what happened to you because you’re, well, rich. Your whole life was practically laid out in front of you. As everything started going wrong, that feeling of certainty faded. For all we know, we’ll be staying here forever. Now, you’re the last one to charge out and do something dangerously dumb. You’re… cautious. Careful not to get hurt.” He searched for a phrase to summarize it all. “You pay a lot more attention to staying alive than you used to.”

Kenji wrapped the blanket around himself. “Yeah, I guess that’s true. But you’ve got the reason wrong. It’s not because I had a revelation about how money can’t buy happiness or something.” He seemed unusually serious: vulnerable, even, like he was putting his true self out there and trusting Ben not to hurt it. Ben wasn’t used to seeing him this way.

Kenji continued, taking a deep breath. “The reason is you.”

Ben just stared, unsure what to reply. 

Kenji looked at him and hesitated. His eyes betrayed his worry: _did I share too much?_ He hurried on before Ben could speak. “What, uh, what I mean is, when you fell… It was kind of a shock, kapeesh? When Darius was trying to pull you up, it was like I couldn’t see. I was completely frozen. The idea of losing you… it washed over me and it was so intense that when I was finally able to move, you were already gone.” He stared at the river. “It was the first time I really registered that these things happen so fast. You were literally ripped away, Ben. For the first few hours, days—I don’t really know how long—that moment played over and over in my head, like a loop. Then I tried to…” He swallowed. “I tried to forget you altogether. I messed around like I usually would, pretended you hadn’t even existed in the first place, but that just made it worse because the memories returned full-force whenever I was alone. And then you… came back from the dead.” 

Kenji’s voice was paper-thin by the end of his admission, and he turned away from Ben. 

Suddenly, warmth enveloped Kenji as he was embraced. When Ben spoke, his voice was hoarse. “Kenji, I… I missed you, too.”

They sat there for a while, wrapped in a silent hug, the only sound in the cavern being that of the gently flowing river. 

Of course, being slightly embarrassed, they both pulled away once it got too long, but the quiet moment had inexplicably filled both of them with bubbles. They grinned at each other, awkward bursts of laughter escaping from between their teeth.

“Oh, look,” Kenji said, a little lightheaded. “You’re glowing.”

“So are you,” Ben observed. It appeared that both of their clothes had gotten smudged with the glowing algae material that had been on their hands during the hug.

On a whim, Kenji scooped some more algae off the cavern wall and splattered Ben with it.

“Hey!” Ben, now dripping in light, gathered the bioluminescent goop in one hand and aimed at Kenji’s chest, his experience throwing spears ensuring that the projectile hit its mark.

Kenji got him back in a matter of seconds, and their conversation dissolved into a bioluminescent algae fight. Shining globs flew through the air, landing on the ground and in the river and all over Kenji and Ben.

By the time they leaned against the wall, tired, they were both glowing—inside and out. Strings of bioluminescent algae floated down the river, empty spots covered the wall where they’d collected their ammunition, and both of them were so drenched in the stuff that they looked like glow-sticks. 

“Nice aim, city boy,” Ben said, slightly out of breath.

Kenji leaned down to rest his hands on his knees. His face was set in a broad grin, and he nodded. “You, too. Never knew you could throw that well.”

“Those weeks in the jungle weren’t for nothing,” Ben said smugly, then broke into a laugh and turned towards the tunnel that led to the surface. “Best get going before the sun comes up.”

Kenji nodded. “Good idea.” They took a minute to gather their breath, then climbed through the tunnel and back to camp. The navy sky had already begun to lighten to a dark gray as they climbed into their cots.

This time, Kenji had no trouble sleeping. He was the last to wake up in the morning, though, and everyone commented on how tired he seemed. Ben, on the other hand, hid his exhaustion well, but kept winking at Kenji until Sammy asked him if there was something in his eye.

The day’s task was to brainstorm ideas about how they’d get off the island, and Yaz came over to Kenji to show him some of her concept sketches. As he looked through them, she crossed her arms knowingly and leaned against a tree. 

“So, you and Ben, right?” she said.

“So, you and Sammy, right?” Kenji retorted, like always.

Yaz stared into the horizon, and, much to Kenji’s surprise, answered in the affirmative.


End file.
